Author Claims Assassin's Creed Set-Up Was His Idea Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 NEXT | |
Really? Sue Ubisoft at a pretty convenient fucking time right? Brilliant plan you dumbass. | |
Iknowright! Considering the book's title, Nintendo has a better case against Beiswenger!
Isn't it obvious? Attila the Hun was a TEMPLAR! | |
It's like the guy who wanted to copyright the '@' symbol. | |
just reminded me of this case, that there was also an idiot who tried to sue the music band "nightwish" for the song "eva", because he said the melody has been stolen from his song. that guy is from finland just like nightwish and no one knew this guy. of course he lost and nightwish was riding in to the sunset. | |
Well, I for one know I've seen the idea of genetically-based memory in at least one other novel (Year Zero by Jeff Long, published 2002), so I find myself somewhat less than sympathetic to the author's idea that the ideas were stolen from him rather than borrowed from multiple sources and/or that similar ideas were generated organically by multiple people. More than the fact that his book got Amazon-bombed, I find it notable that prior to today he had one review on Amazon, suggesting a book that simply hadn't generated a whole lot of attention in and of itself. It smells to me like that woman who claimed she was responsible for Harry Potter because she used the word "Muggle". | |
I just have to comment that the reasoning here isn't exactly sound. "One uses a fictional particle, while the other uses fictional DNA, thus they are completely different" is farcical at best. The concept of both is a machine that reads a person's ancestral memories and allows them to experience it. Furthermore, if the summary of Link is correct, both it and AC are doing functionally the same thing: sending someone to relive their ancestral memories in order to uncover a mystery. Superficially, it's very similar. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say if there's grounds for a suit, but it certainly appears to be worth investigating. | |
Poor guy is getting Amazon blitzed at the moment, if he was trying to get more book sales it really isn't working. I'm pretty sure this guy is going to lose this case. | |
Okay, it seems everyone here is bashing on this guy, and yeah, he does appear to have a fairly weak case, but is there ANYONE on these forums that has read the book and can give us a definitive answer as to whether this guy has a shot? | |
I know it's been said a few times already, but I thought it worth mentioning again to balance out the vitriol. Nowhere in Assassins Creed's marketing campaigns mention anything about a "DNA Memory Recall" device. If you do not know people who play it to describe it too you, and you don't spend countless hours looking up plotlines for videogames, movies and other books, you are NOT going to know about this until much later. If you go into the game blind, you are NOT going to know that the main character is actually some modern-day average joe whose ancesters are assassins. If you're not interested in playing videogames, then this sort of information is NOT going to be made readily available to you. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that the average person on the street may be aware of a videogame in which you play an assassin, but not that you're actually doing so my reliving their memories. That aside, the claim is mind-bogglingly stupid in far more obvious terms, namely being that the idea of genetic memory, and using some kind of device to access it, is an incredibly common concept in sci-fi. The fact that this guy thinks he has some kind of intellectual claim to it is dumbfounding. If there is any justice, this claim will be laughed out of court. | |
I always thought that Oblivion borrowed heavily from Raymond E. Feists 'Magician'. | |
They were obviously both ripping off Stargate: SG-1, as the Goa'uld have ancestral memory too. Time for a lawsuit! | |
I was wondering why he's only suing now, and the only thing i can think of is maybe he was saving up the money to afford the court costs? | |
Once again I open a thread only to find that my exact thoughts have already been posted. | |
So let's see. This sciency bit to explain his fictional technology is stolen directly from Orson Scott Card, while the effects of the technology in being able to go back in time to relive other people's lives is stolen directly from Olaf Stapledon. And he's suing because someone copied him? Right. | |
Let's make this clear: even if Link was required reading for everyone on the Ubisoft development team, this guy doesn't have a case. You can't copyright ideas. | |
The case that would make far more sense would be the other way round (i.e. game suing book), Charles Cecil vs. Dan Brown. Seriously, play the first Broken Sword game through and then read The Da Vinci Code. Much of it will be more than a little bit familiar... Unless we're getting into plot specifics and those are also similar, I'd say that the use of this device as... well... a device (dug myself into a hole there) isn't something that can be sued for. | |
My thoughts exactly. Although I find myself thinking that pretty much whenever I look at reviews of self-published books/ebooks on Amazon. Reviews of actual products tend to be alright. But never trust the book reviews. | |
The same reason the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) waited 20 something years before suing the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and made them change their name to WWE. | |
Okay... As much as I don't like Ass Creed, I must admit this is bloody stupid... | |
:P That's why I generally only post responses in topics that are on their first page, preferably with 20 or fewer responses. Otherwise someone else has most likely said the exact same thing I was going to post...and 15 others have repeated it. | |
So he never heard of the series until AC3? | |
Just a couple of thoughts. I actually took the time to read over the legal document, and the one thing I will say is that his (admittedly very dull to read) description of the machine sounded somewhat like the animus design. (See below for that extract) On the other hand, it was repeatedly stated that his book was only available through online outlets, no major bookstores were mentioned as means of distribution. Add in that prior to this lawsuit, the book had one review on Amazon, and no mentions anywhere else, and I think we can safely say that this is not a work that got much attention. I can't speak for the quality of the novel as a whole, but it does seem a lot less likely that Ubisoft happened to read a super obscure book and base their video game series on it. Also beyond the fairly detailed claim about the Animus, a lot of his references to assassins weren't anything like the AC series. They wanted to find a descendent of John Wilkes Booth, to see if they could place him at Lincoln's assassination. Similarly they wanted to try using the tech on a comatose survivor of a mass assassination in Israel. In both cases it was to find the assassins, not a part of some hidden war between two factions. His other claims seem pretty superficial as well, like claiming that because both his novel and one of the AC games very briefly mentions the idea of memory interference if the tech is used on a pregnant woman is somehow plagiarism. Anyways, for the sake of comparison, here is his description of his whatever-he-called-it: "The Link is no longer a hand-gripped device." Allen picked up an assembly from the small table behind the revised dentist chair now used during the Link experiments. The video monitor was now on gimbals, hanging from the ceiling so that it could be comfortably positioned in front of the test subject and yet viewed easily by those monitoring the test. "We place this device around Anna's biceps, just above the joint. As you can see, it looks very much like a blood-pressure cuff, except that facing the meaty part of her arm is this one-inch diameter, donut-shaped ring," Allen continued. "In the ring we have incorporated all of the sensors we had in the hand-gripped Link." Allen picked up a bundled cable, with an overall diameter of about three-fourths of an inch, including a high pressure hose, two twisted pairs of wires and a thin, white, coaxial cable. "At the center of the ring," he said, "we attach this special terminator, which is a gold-plated high pressure nozzle. The metal nozzle is held by the cuff tightly against the arm, making a good electrical and hydraulic connection." "Attached to Anna's other arm, at the wrist, is still a standard grounding strap. The ten-volt pulse is applied between the grounding strap and the nozzle. Power to the Link circuit is supplied by one twisted pair, and the data received from Anna's particle is carried by the coax to the recording equipment over there," he finished, pointing to an impressive array at a test station against the wall directly behind the chair, adjacent to the door. Compare to picture of the animus seen here: http://images.wikia.com/assassinscreed/images/f/f6/Ac_desmond.jpg | |
Yeah. Based on the merits of his case, I give this about a snowballs chance in hades of going through. If George Lucas got away with the similarities between Star Wars and (insert almost every hero's journey story ever written not to mention a couple of nasty subversions) then I'm pretty certain Ubisoft is safe. | |
Well, you have to remember the principal reason why it is stupid; The more money a party is willing and able to throw at their lawyers the more they tend to hand asses to other parties. Something tells me Ubisoft has handful more dollars to give their lawyers than this unknown author. | |
I have the solution: | |
I find it very hard to believe that he's not picked it up before now. There's what 8 games now and a comic series and everything. Even if the idea for the animus came from his book, it's not enough to sue them for. People use other people's ideas all the time. The writers for Pocohontas, now they have case, but this guy definitely not. | |
Actually the game (first part) is based on a book called Alamut but they had permission to use some of it's premise as a game. | |
I never thought the Animus was that bad. I thought it was actually kind of a neat way to explain some of the gameplay mechanics in a way that made sense in-universe. Though I know some people saw it as a cop out, but I dug it. OT: I can't help but wonder if he's waiting till now because the series is worth more or if he genuinely didn't know. | |
Heh, heh, heh... I see you saw the same reasoning that I did (by the way, damn, ninja'd). That's just hilarious.
Well, I would kind of care. I don't like Desmond. ... At all (fuck Desmond), but it would be nice to hear some insight from characters I actually care about, like that one british guy that I can't remember the name of. He's okay. But Desmond can rot in hell. Here's what I think would happen if the world was a fair, honest place. "If I am to lose this lawsuit, may an assassin strike me down where I--- AHHH!!! *coughs out blood* ...Why?" | |
Well its not the first time, someones attempted to sue a game/movie after its been released. (You can sue for more, if they make more) Matrix as an example... (Though as i found out, that lady never did actually 'win' that court case.... learn something new everyday!) However, if this guy claims 'ubi' stole his idea... As for the religion thing brought up in the original article... | |
'Religion is mentioned particularly in the first Assassin's Creed because it, well, is set during the Third Crusade.' Well, the entire series is about religion. But yeah, it's just a thing - it's like Tolkien suing someone because they had a magical piece of clothing at the centre of their story. | |
So, this guy doesn't know the plot-device of a multimillion dollar game advertised everywhere, but somebody on their team knows the plot of this self-published piece of crap book? | |
oh my god, the first page in the preview...
I've read that sentence 5 times and I still don't understand what he's on about. | |
The problem is, when you really think about it, Desmond's plotline is the MAIN plotline of AC. Yeah, the majority of the games are spent faffing about in the past, but why are they faffing about in the past? To find clues on how to save the future and prevent the catastrophe that is apparently about to strike. Not saying that I like the Desmond and Gang segments of the games, but those segments are the REAL story of the AC series. :P And yeah, I know how depressing that is.
You've got to be quick! :P | |
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The "story" of Assassins creed really isn't anything to brag about...The whole thing is just one giant mess really. I dare anyone to explain it to me and still sound coherrent
I never liked the idea of the animus machine, it just seemed forced in as a way to squeeze out more sequels, and guess what? That's exactly what they've been doing every year.
AC never holds any weight to it. For one, the difficulty is laughably easy and two, everything is just a "dream" (oh, I'm sorry: Memory) so what exactly is compelling me to keep playing? Certainly not the characters, Desmond is about as bland as cardboard soup (wait thats unfair, even soup can be interesting).